Huber's Tattoo

by Quentin Smith

  Natasha’s stomach heaved. She did not like what she heard.

  “Are you in Wernigerode?” she asked, disbelieving.

  Henry laughed.

  “Thanks for sharing that with me, Natasha. I see who you’re working for now.”

  Natasha spun around. Where was Henry? Was he with Gustav Huber in Wernigerode? Could he be in danger?

  “Is that Big Ben I hear chiming?” Natasha asked, frowning.

  Henry laughed some more.

  “One hell of a detective you, Sergeant. No, that is in fact the bells of Bath Abbey ringing out. Beautiful, aren’t they?”

  “You’re in Bath?”

  Natasha looked around agitatedly, her chest heaving with nervous apprehension.

  “What’s going on?” one of the PCs whispered.

  Natasha held up her hand.

  “Is Gustav Huber also in Bath?” she said.

  “I tracked him down through Mensa. God Bless Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.”

  “Henry, we don’t even know if he’s safe to be around. He could well be our prime suspect. He could be the killer, for all we know. We know nothing about him. Please don’t meet him on your own.” Natasha’s breath came in short gasps.

  “First it’s Schröder, now it’s Huber. Come on, Natasha. He’s over seventy. He doesn’t look as though he could beat a carpet, let alone slit my throat. I just want to talk to him about Heim Hochland and see what he knows about the tattoos. I need to know.”

  “Henry, Dieter Schröder is dead!”

  “What?”

  “The police broke into his house and discovered his body, single gunshot wound to the head.”

  “When?”

  “A few days ago, I’m not sure exactly.” Natasha rubbed her temples.

  She could hear the cadences of Bath Abbey’s bells ringing melodiously in the background.

  “That’s odd,” Henry said eventually.

  “Why?”

  “Because I spoke to him a few days ago.” “You spoke to Schröder?”

  “Yes, he asked me to tell him if I found Gustav… er, Nauhaus, that is his registered name at birth. It was in the letter, remember?”

  Natasha’s brain was bursting. She tried to recall details. Gesturing to the PCs to follow her, she began to walk rapidly towards the lifts.

  “We’ll come straight over to Bath now, but it’ll take a while to reach you. Keep your phone on and answer when I call, OK? We’re on our way. Be careful, please.”

  They descended silently in the lift, the PCs exchanging puzzled glances with each other as Natasha fretted over how to proceed.

  “We’re heading straight to Bath,” she said as they climbed into the Ford Focus. “Blue light. How far is it?”

  “Bath?” The PC at the wheel eased the car out into the traffic.

  “About a hundred miles along the M4, I’d say,” the second PC said. “We should call it in.”

  “Step on it, Constable, I’m calling the Super now to update him.”

  The car pulled away, accelerating rapidly. Natasha bit on her knuckle as she debated her options. She was obligated to notify Bruce, that much she knew, but there was one more phone call she was contemplating making before they reached Bath, a last resort, perhaps even a desperate long shot. Either way, it was a call that was long overdue.

  Seventy-Three

  “The Superintendent is at an official luncheon,” said Bruce’s PA haughtily.

  The police car smelled of wet dog, the faint sourness possibly of old vomit and the pungency of stale odour beneath body armour that had been worn all day.

  “Are there any DCIs in the Incident Room?” Natasha asked, staring out of the car window at the suffocating build-up of traffic that surrounded them. She realised that it was going to take some time to cross London and get anywhere near the M4 to Bristol, let alone cover the hundred or so miles. She needed help, but who should she turn to in Bruce’s absence? Who could she trust not to take over completely and shut her out? She did not want to be excluded at this critical stage; her concern for Henry was too great to let that happen.

  “What is this about?” was the PA’s suspicious reply.

  “It’s an emergency, officer, DCI Webber’s life may be at risk. I believe he may unwittingly be in the company of a potential suspect in our murder investigation.”

  “Can you confirm that?”

  Natasha hesitated.

  “No. Please get one of the Met Inspectors to call me as soon as possible. It is a matter of life and death!”

  “Hold on, DCI Warburton has just passed the door,” the PA said.

  Oh God, Natasha thought, Warburton was a right stickler for procedure.

  “Detective Sergeant Keeler, what can I do for you today?” “Sir, I have reason to believe that DCI Webber is meeting with a German man who may well be a key suspect in the murders we have been investigating. This man may we dangerous, I need him checked out urgently, please.”

  “DCI Webber is on suspension, is he not?” Warburton said.

  “Yes, sir, but Henry, er, DCI Webber is considered to be a potential target for the killer and Superintendent Bruce ordered me to take police protection to his home. Problem is, he has gone out to meet this man.”

  “Why?”

  Natasha was losing patience.

  “Sir, I need someone to run a background check on this suspect. His name is Gustav Nauhaus, born in 1939 in Steinhöring, now known as Gustav Huber, lives in Wernigerode in Germany. Does he have priors, any police records and I especially need to know what his previous dates of travel to the UK have been, whether they coincide at all with the murders we’re investigating.”

  Another pause. It would be Warburton. She could almost hear his brain clicking through the rule book.

  “Where are you now, Sergeant? This is highly irregular.”

  Natasha wanted to shout at him. Why had Bruce not been there?

  “Sir, I am in pursuit of DCI Webber in the company of two police constables. This is urgent. DCI Webber could be in danger.”

  “In pursuit of DCI Webber… I say again, where are you?”

  Natasha considered terminating the call. Her heart was pounding and she could feel cold perspiration sticking to her clothes.

  “Sergeant, I know you worked closely with DCI Webber, but perhaps this is the time to tell you that we are also investigating Henry Webber as a potential suspect in some of these murders,” Warburton said, in a tone that made Natasha’s blood boil.

  “I don’t believe what I’m hearing, sir.”

  “Sergeant, you are aware of the same facts about DCI Webber that I am: the CCTV sighting at Covent Garden, the holiday in Grasmere, the holiday in the Dordogne, the trip to Durham and now the trip to Steinhöring. Perhaps your… closeness to this case has blinkered your objectivity.”

  Natasha wanted to scream. If she had been standing in front of Warburton she might have slapped him. How dare he suggest that Henry Webber, her senior officer, might be a serial killer!

  “Oh, hello, Steven,” she heard Warburton say.

  “Is that Superintendent Bruce, sir?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “May I please speak to him? He knows all about this.”

  Natasha felt a wave of relief breaking over her. Bruce was immediately more responsive, comprehending the ramifications of Natasha’s concerns about Gustav Huber. She did not ask him about what Warburton had revealed to her and Bruce did not mention anything either.

  “Proceed with caution, Sergeant. I’m not sure what is going on. I will contact you again in fifteen minutes,” he said.

  Natasha was aware that she had not revealed their destination to him; in fact, she had actually concealed it, because she feared that a call to the local police in Bath could possibly provoke a clumsy and uninformed response that might precipitate an incident.

  “We are not armed,” the constable driving the car said to Natasha when she had finished on the phone, his concerned eyes flashing up in the rear vi
ew mirror.

  “I know,” she replied with a sigh.

  “We should call it in to the Bath and North-East Somerset Constabulary,” he continued. “They can be there in minutes.”

  “No!” Natasha said sharply. “I have discussed it with Superintendent Bruce and we don’t want a clumsy stand-off with trigger-happy officers who don’t understand the situation. I want to be there.” She chewed the inside of her lip. “I must be there,” she corrected herself.

  The prospect of possibly losing Henry, even though she recognised on a deeper level that she had never possessed him, had begun to penetrate into Natasha’s mind and was gnawing away at her composure. She knew now that Henry was of greater personal importance to her than she could ever have foreseen and she was not about to let this unexpected West Country encounter destroy the potential of that unconsummated hope.

  Surely Warburton was wrong? Did the Met seriously suspect Henry might be the killer? Natasha thought back to the two incidents she had witnessed when he had disappeared only to return confused and without clear memory. The two constables in the front of the car exchanged a look.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, Sergeant.”

  Natasha studied the second number she was about to dial, before realizing that it was incomplete. Damn, she cursed under her breath. There was simply no time to waste on such trivialities. She dialled directory enquiries.

  “Can I please have the international dialling code for Cairo,” she said, ignoring the odd looks that she could see reflected in the rear view mirror.

  Natasha felt her anxiety increase and her heart rate accelerate as the phone began to ring. God, I hope Warburton is wrong, she thought.

  “How far to the M4?” Natasha asked.

  The driver inclined his head slightly to one side.

  “We’re getting there; fifteen minutes, perhaps?”

  With a distant click, the call was answered.

  Seventy-Four

  Gustav Huber paused at the wooden street-vendor’s cart on the paving stones beneath the Abbey’s bell tower. Tourists milled in every direction, soaking up the sumptuous historic surroundings, taking photographs of every conceivable architectural angle.

  “I am hungry. Would you like some roasted chestnuts?” Gustav asked as he fumbled for change in his camel brown corduroy trouser pockets.

  Henry frowned.

  “No, I don’t like eating things with my fingers.”

  Gustav paid the grateful vendor and turned, holding a brown paper bag that exuded the toasty smells and flavours of autumn. He limped towards Henry, clipping the flagstones with his walking stick.

  “Funny that, my father was exactly the same.”

  “Your father was an SS officer?” Henry said, as they entered the elegantly kept entrance to the Roman Baths.

  “Ja. He was also a highly specialised neuroscientist in the service of the SS hierarchy.”

  Henry paid for two tickets and he and Gustav continued in their stroll into the bowels of the ancient monument. The smell of chestnuts slowly became suffused with the humid dampness of thermal spring water issuing forth from the volcanic depths of the earth’s crust.

  “Did you know him?” Henry asked.

  “Oh ja, I lived with my parents in Gmünden until I was about twenty and then I left… and never returned.”

  Henry frowned deeply.

  “Gmünden? I thought you were born in Steinhöring?”

  “I was, but at the end of the war my parents fled to Austria with everyone from the project unit. Gmünden was chosen for its remoteness and because it had functioned as a secret Lebensborn home during the war, one of the very last to be opened.”

  Henry could feel his mouth becoming dry and his palms sweaty. They walked on in silence, passing groups of tourists taking photographs of the stone sculptures: Julius Caesar, Hadrian, Claudius – they were all there, guarding over the steaming, greenish waters below. Having reached the ancient excavated paving stones of the original first century Roman bathhouse, Henry sat on a worn stone bench. Gustav sat down with a groan a few feet away.

  “The remnants of another great dream of domination,” Gustav mused, looking around at the well preserved bathhouse and gesturing with his arm. “In the case of the Third Reich, the remnants of that dream are not carved in stone, but in flesh and blood.”

  Gustav popped a chestnut into his mouth, studying Henry’s facial responses. Henry eventually glanced across at Gustav, his puzzled curiosity spilling over.

  “Go on,” he said.

  Gustav dropped another warm chestnut into his mouth, chewing slowly.

  “The Lebensborn program was devised to provide the Third Reich with pure Aryan offspring that would lead Germany, power its armies and rule the world for a thousand years.” Gustav’s eyes hardened as he stared into wispy curls of steam rising off the surface of the murky green thermal waters. “This was Himmler’s vision and as part of that… madness… he created a generation of the purest Aryans.”

  Gustav turned back to meet Henry’s gaze. Henry shuffled on the stone bench. His discomfort surprised him. Ever since he had first suspected that something sinister lurked in his background, he had been determined to uncover every minute detail, to know everything. Now suddenly, with the moment of truth perhaps only a few breaths away, he was growing reluctant to let the ghosts of his past into the present.

  “What was the project unit you mentioned earlier?” he asked.

  “Ah, now that’s where people like you and I come into the story,” Gustav said, staring down into his bag of chestnuts.

  “It’s the tattoo, isn’t it?” Henry began, uncertainly.

  Gustav nodded, crunching on more chestnuts.

  “Do we all have them?” Henry asked.

  Gustav shook his head.

  “No, not all Lebensborn have tattoos. You and I and countless unfortunates like us, we have tattoos that mark us as distinctive… special… if you believe such nonsense. I believe they mark us for what we are: tainted.”

  Henry’s head ached. He was hearing, for the first time, the story of his childhood from a total stranger. Trying to make sense of it was painful.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The tattooed babies all originated in the project unit. We are the products of my father’s ground-breaking neuroscientific experimentation – executed to Himmler’s specifications.”

  Gustav’s voice was edged with derision now, a bitterness that Henry had not detected in his warm speech to the Lebensspuren meeting at the Assembly Rooms. Gustav studied Henry’s face as he chewed and then angled his head to try and see the back of Henry’s neck.

  “You have removed your tattoo, I see.”

  Henry nodded.

  “You are slightly younger than me, so I am guessing you had a two or a three on your neck.” Gustav raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  Henry felt goose bumps breaking out across his body.

  “G3,” he replied.

  Gustav nodded solemnly.

  “I am G1, the first prototype, so to speak. The tattoos, God bless him, were my father’s idea, to tell the generations apart. He even had his own son tattooed.” Gustav’s voice was again icily precise in its censure.

  “The first prototype… prototype of what?” Henry asked, standing up to relieve the tension that enveloped his body, like a coiled spring.

  Gustav chewed and nodded, looking down at the worn flat stones where Roman feet and leather sandals would have padded their way imperiously around the hot waters amidst the height of the Roman domination. Did the Romans, in their imperial prime, feel an entitlement to be and do what they did, just like the Nazis, just like his father, so many years later?

  “Some of Germany’s brightest scientists at the former Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin came up with a master plan within Lebensborn, to create the best of the best: super intelligent beings within an Aryan super race; highly selected for desirable genetic attributes and then scientifically engineered
to enhance that… intelligence… to the pinnacle of their potential.”

  “What?” Henry was shocked, spinning around at the water’s edge and facing Gustav where he sat on the stone bench, one arthritic leg stretched out beside the walking stick.

  “We were branded according to our generation of evolution; one through to, I don’t know, five or six.”

  Henry felt sick: the sudden realization that his brilliance was crafted in a test tube nauseated him.

  “This could not all have taken place in Steinhöring,” he said, covering his mouth with his hand and walking around in small steps.

  “No, only the first generation. The rest were born in Gmünden, but my parents and the others involved continued to issue the original Steinhöring birth certificates and kept all records in the same files.” Gustav’s face hardened and he lowered the packet of chestnuts. “I was physically sick when I found out. I could not face the people, my parents included, who had done this to me, to other human beings…”

  “Your parents?” Henry said, stopping for a moment.

  Gustav nodded.

  “When did they die?” Henry asked softly.

  “In the late 1980s. They moved back to Germany but were not welcomed. I had no interest in reconciliation. How could I forgive them for what they had done to me and to so many others? I had already begun to form counselling groups for people affected by Lebensborn, trying to rebuild lives and save people from the tragedy of guilt and despair. I despised what my parents did, what everything they believed in had amounted to.”

  Gustav paused, deep in tormented thought, eyes downcast.

  “They returned to Gmünden and died there several years later.” He sighed deeply and seemed to lose interest in the chestnuts, as though he had enough bitter after-taste in his mouth.

  Henrik stared at Gustav, motionless, watching and observing his every expression.

  “Did you kill anyone?” he asked, feeling a sudden brief return of the detective within him.

  Gustav scoffed and his torso shook a few times, terminating in a hacking cough.

  “The people I might have perhaps wanted to harm are long dead. The ones left alive are the victims, like myself, and I am motivated to help them. I feel, by virtue of my birthright, partially responsible for the ungodly mess that was so scientifically orchestrated, for the lives that have been ruined through premeditated, misguided evil.”